Robots Engage Nu Students' Gears

Innovative Solutions Power Quirky Event

May 24, 1998|By Hermione Malone, Tribune Staff Writer.

The robots fighting for supremacy Saturday at Northwestern University faced a tough 26-foot obstacle course winding over a steep incline, an infrared-triggered gate, a bed of marbles, rotating turntables, tunnels with unfriendly conveyor belts and a labyrinth.

Rule No. 1 for the annual, corporate-backed race that nets $1,000 for the top team of engineering students: no remote control allowed.

In the end, a robot called Tall, Dark & Handsome featuring Sexy Thang beat a crowd favorite named CAPS, acing out odd-looking entries from 20 teams at the Northwestern University Design Competition '98.

"We didn't expect to win. The other teams had really ingenious designs," said environmental engineering student Kevin McPeak, 21, whose team won. "You can only design it so much and then it's just luck."

As spectators quickly learned, the teams that won each round didn't have to complete the course. The robot that got the farthest in the least time won.

CAPS looked like an air-compression tank with a secret weapon. At the start of the second round, an extendible arm filled with air shot across the course to reach the finish line.

"The idea came from a New Year's Eve party blower," said team member Ryan O'Nell, 20, a mechanical engineering student. "We spent a good quarter building a car, then we thought we needed to do something different."

O'Nell said the team studied the rules and figured out that only one piece of the robot had to cross the finish line. In every round of competition, CAPS walked away victorious, until the final bout with Tall, Dark & Handsome featuring Sexy Thang.

"Yours is awesome," yelled a young spectator to a CAPS team member. "It's like an elephant," said another.

The arm extended until it snagged on the right wall of a tunnel, and Tall, Dark & Handsome jetted past to win.

Allen Taflove, a Northwestern engineering professor and an adviser to the competition, estimates that the executive committee spent 1,000 hours planning during the past nine months.

"Their juices are flowing, they're excited about it," he said. "We attract some really good kids, and this is a way to attract some positive attention to how good they are."

The CAPS team walked away with $500, and the third-place team, Beatdown, won $300. As part of its design, Beatdown was able to climb over the labyrinth walls. Other innovative designs included the spinning side wheels of Da Da Da.